


Happy Days

by Merixcil



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Gen, not really a fix it fic, pre-emptive fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-01 06:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10916628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: A series of ficlets written in the week leading up to Season 3 in which everyone is happy. Just in case that all changes come Sunday.





	1. Dale Cooper

The woods are lovely at this time of year, leaves glowing in the early afternoon sun. Cooper pauses half way up the slope of the mountain and looks back at the town, ringed by the new living green of the forest. This is how it’s supposed to be viewed, a sleepy little place with little to show for its two hundred year history, but happy for it. Blending into the countryside like a feature of the landscape.

He decides that today, this will be his present. A full five minutes spent admiring the place he chooses to call his home. Even now, it calls to him. The low hum of activity at the police station, the smell of Norma’s pies drifting across town from the Double R, the splutter of engines revving back to life under Ed’s hands. Five minutes, that’s all he asks.

If there is something vile and slippery living at the back of his mind, it's quiet today, and Cooper is entirely himself. He sets himself back on the trail, debating whether to hum the tune stuck in his head from the morning radio or to keep silent in the hope that the mysteries of these woods will reveal themselves to him as he passes.


	2. Audrey Horne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during a period in her life in which Audrey worked as a cop.

Her knees are never quite the same again, which is endlessly frustrating when she gets to the academy and has to work twice as hard as anyone else there to keep up with the physical drills they’re put through on a daily basis. Running and jumping, getting so out of breath you could hear your blood pounding in your ears. At first Audrey had hated everything about it, and not just because of her knee. Detective work was supposed to be cerebral, but there she was in Olympia worrying about whether or not she could run a mile fast enough to be considered worthy of more intellectual pursuits.

These days she sees the value of physical intelligence, without missing it one bit. The blast at the bank that had held her life in the palm of her hands hadn’t done more than slow her down, but it’s a pain in the ass having to pause fifty times a day to let he knees recover from the mundanity of walking. Audrey keeps a picture of Pete Martell in her wallet, and whenever anyone asks she tells them a fantastical tale of a deep sea fisherman who drowned saving a mermaid from suffocating on his deck.

“What are you thinking?” her partner asks, pointing to the jimmied lock flanking the door of the crime scene they’re investigating. A robbery, nothing too tricky.

Audrey smiles, lets the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “I think it’s time for some role play.”

She always liked this part best of all.


	3. Norma Jennings

There’s a lull in traffic at the Double R every afternoon between two and three. The lunch rush is over and school’s not out and Norma has time to take things slowly for a minute or two, looking up to see just how far she’s come.

Some afternoons Hank calls, and some afternoons she picks up. Norma has been to visit him a grand total of three times since he got locked up, and she’s more sure than ever that she’s made the trip for the last time. Not that she cares how he’s doing, but he seems happier inside than walking free. Institutionalised and no longer her problem.

Norma Jennings' problem arrives around half four most days, hankering for mulberry pie and smiling a great wide smile that never fails to sweep her off her feet. Ed Hurley has staid handsome in his old age, and is kind and careful as always. With the diner empty save for the kitchen staff fussing around out back, she hauls herself up to sit on the counter and imagines a version of events in which he marches in and sweeps her off her feet.

Ed would never do that to Nadine, of course. But for the first time in twenty years the idea that he could comes easy to her. It’s a far cry from everything she ever wanted, but it’s a start.


	4. Harry S. Truman

Some days are worse than others, and a few days are truly good. It’s hard, living in a town that has lost inhabitants like lacewing flies in summer, dropping away in great rushes rather than in dribs and drabs. Harry worries that he’s the only one who still feels the gaps left by terrible years in Twin Peaks, that he’s stuck in the past.

Laura Palmer, Maddy Ferguson, Leland Palmer, Pete Martell, Dwayne Milford.

Josie Packard. The early nineties had really taken their toll on this place, and years later it’s still possible to see the signs. Harry’s not trying to think about her when he goes up to the Great Northern, just to be sure that everything’s ok, but it’s hard not to. Those great big trees, the pinewood walls. The mill is long gone, but this place still feels a little something like it.

But what a view, looking down river, past the waterfall to the town. Unchanged yet ever changing. If he’s living in the past, Harry is happy to say that he picked a good past to live in.


	5. Margaret Lanterman

Shapes emerge out of shadows, the faces she passes are ever different but they speak as if with the same soul. Searching, though they know not what for. The smart ones give her a wide birth and the wise ones come right up to her door. If she’s feeling generous, Margaret answers.

She’s long since rejected the idea that old age is supposed to be lived in one way or another, either by slowly decaying or finding grace in your winter years. Margaret was never all that graceful and she would rather combust than rot. She spends days at a time sitting on her porch, drinking in the sights and sounds of the woods, letting them nourish her. Really, she doesn’t need much else.

Her log stays nestled in the crook of her arm, whispering sweet nothings and ancient wisdom. She doesn’t ask it for anything, and it gives itself freely.


	6. Tommy Hill

For over thirty years, Hawk has walked into the police station and smelled the exact same brew wafting in from the break room. He doesn’t know how Lucy does it, but she’s been sourcing the same brand and making perfect coffee for as long as she’s been here. He’s always liked the predictability of this town, right down to the details. From parent to child and friend to friend, kindnesses are passed around like heirlooms in Twin Peaks. He would know, his father used to say the exact same thing.

This morning, Harry is talking on the phone, a fraction too loud for these flimsy walls, and though Hawk can’t pick out individual words he knows his friend so well that he can tell what he’s saying by intonation alone. Something about a robbery just outside of town, a handful of valuables taken. It sucks to be the person having to make that call at eight thirty on a Tuesday, but to him it sounds like a pretty easy way to start off the day.

Harry sticks his head out of his office, glances round the room like he’s looking for something before his eyes settle on Hawk, “you seen Cooper?”

“He’ll be here in ten,” Hawk tells him. He hasn’t seen Cooper since the previous afternoon, has no idea what he’s doing with himself this morning. But he knows for sure that his friend will be ten minutes, because that’s what this town is like. Easy, predictable, home.


	7. Shelly Johnson

No one knows what happened to Leo and that suits Shelly just fine. She had woken up one morning and found him gone, given it three days before she called Sheriff Truman in to look into his disappearance, and a week later she was still living alone and ready to pack up and move out.

Bobby hadn’t been particularly happy about it, but she hadn’t done it for him. He would have been welcome to come with her, but when Shelly offered him the spare seat at the front of Leo’s old truck he had mumbled something about his parents and job prospects up at the Great Northern. So she had pulled away without him, and it hadn’t felt like leaving a part of her soul behind so much as putting aside childish things.

These days Shelly lives in Olympia, managing a diner all of her own and making pies that she thinks Norma would be proud of. Sometimes Audrey stops by when she’s working a case in the area, and they talk like old friends but they don’t talk about home.

Shelly makes a handful of trips upstate to Twin Peaks every year, and it never changes quite as much as she expects it to. The people just get older. Bobby Briggs never fails to take her out for dinner up at the Great Northern, staring at her across plates of locally caught trout like he’s still thinking about asking her to marry him.

They both know she wouldn’t say yes, but it would be nice to see him try it. Leo never came back to Twin Peaks and Shelly didn’t cry when he was declared legally dead. She’s a widow, coming home from the big city with flowers in her hair, and she has no desire to let anyone tie her down like that ever again.


	8. James Hurley

The open road stretches up and down the length of the country, just as far as you’d care to follow it. James has followed it further, in fact, down into Mexico on several occasions. He lives out of the storage sacks strapped to the back of his bike, and makes a living doing odd jobs in mechanic shops whenever he rolls into town.

He used to send letters to Donna, till he got a call from his uncle one lazy afternoon just outside Houston telling him that she’d moved out. James hadn’t known how to feel about that, still doesn’t know. Donna never struck him as the type to leave town, but he supposes people can change.

Not James Hurley, he plans on staying exactly as he is for as long as possible. His bike roars beneath him, and the road stretches on, and he’s happy to say that he doesn’t have a home.  


	9. Denise Bryson

Denise doesn’t like leaving unfinished business lying around, but eventually she has to put her foot down and close the book before they reach the bitter end. “Enough!” she snaps when Albert comes into her office and collapses onto the couch in his standard moping position.

Albert’s moping position is the same as all his other positions, but his left hand twitches impatiently as he mutters about unusual behaviour and bare faced idiocy.

He thinks there’s something up with Cooper. Denise would have to agree, but it’s nothing nearly so sinister as her friend would have her believe. Cooper is fine, the reason he sounds so different these days is that he’s happier up in Twin Peaks than he ever was in Washington. Albert hates the idea that he’s wasted quite so much of his life pining after someone who only went and ran off anyway and Denise can hardly be expected to talk him out of that.

“I have a date,” she winks at him, picking up her coat and showing Albert the door before he can taint the moment with more of his dispiriting drivel.

Denise’s date is a cute little number named Jenny from the accounting department, with long red hair and a bright smile that makes the room positively sing when she walks in. She’s waiting for her when she opens the door, blinking at Albert, confused.

“Your friend seemed upset,” Jenny says as Denise links their arms together.

“Please,” Denise laughs, “he’s just grumpy because he doesn’t have what we have.”

Jenny leans into Denise’s side, content to be paraded through the building on their way out. There’s something in the air between them, warm and electric, and Denise has butterflies in her stomach thinking about all the wonderful places this evening might take them both.


	10. Albert Rosenfield

Albert is more than aware that he can be a real sourpuss when the mood takes him. He’s also aware that plenty of idiots misinterpret his usual inability to suffer fools gladly as an uncommon bad temper rather than a necessary defense mechanism picked up after years of working in close proximity with some very stupid people.

Right now, for instance, the boy (practically pre-pubescent) manning the luggage carousel is staring at him like he’s a dog gone rabid that might be cured if only a soothing enough voice can be found to speak to it in. Albert wishes he would put less energy into being a simpering idiot and more energy into finding his lost luggage.

“I’m afraid that the airline has lost my bags, and they will likely not be with me until tomorrow,” Albert says from between gritted teeth down the line to Cooper. Of all the places he could have come on holiday, and he decided to come back to this ridiculous little outpost on the edge of civilisation. On reflection, he has no right to judge the intellect of any of his fellow human beings.

Cooper laughs, light and airy, “Albert, I have a spare pair pf pyjamas and a fresh toothbrush at home. You would be welcome to borrow them if it would mean the difference between us leaving this airport right now and you sleeping on the runway.”

That’s an offer too good to refuse. Albert gets the word of the carousel boy that his bags will be delivered to Cooper’s as soon as they arrive on this side of the country, and goes out to meet his friend.

Cooper grows more handsome with each passing year, while Albert feels like he’s retreating into himself, beneath endless new wrinkles and a rapidly depleting supply of hair. He knows that Cooper’s not interested in him like that, but he can’t help but feel self-conscious, fiddling with his the cuff of his shirt like he might be able to hide the less savoury parts of himself beneath them.

Cooper doesn’t care. He sweeps Albert up in a mighty bear hug, pulling him in close enough that the only thing Albert can focus on is the smell of his hair, the weight of his arms, the temporary pretense that this is a two way street.


	11. Ronette Pulaski

Ronette isn’t sure if she made the right choice, staying on in Twin Peaks for years after she first caught the smell of oil burning through the trees. There have been days when she’s wanted to run, or to hide. To slip between the barely-there walls of this world and vanish into some other plane of existence. Back in the early days she had thought it would be the easiest thing to do, closure for her and the removal of an unseemly reminder of past awfulness for everyone else.

People don’t see her that way though, not then and especially not now. Ronette has a job doing the admin down at the vet’s office and she picks up weekend shifts from Norma at the Double R. Bobby Briggs flirts with her when they pass at the supermarket, Lucy calls her at every day with gossip from the police station, and she has lunch with Sarah Palmer at least once a week. No one brings up the past unless she brings it up first and when they tell her she’s strong for making it through so much, she believes them.


	12. Lawrence Jacobi

The best thing about Hawaii is that it’s beautiful at any time of year. No need to consult complex weather maps or worry about the local forecast, whenever Doctor Lawrence Jacobi decides he wants to revisit his boyhood paradise all he has to do is pack a bag and go. To where the sun shines bright enough to render the world like a cheap videogame and the birds are always singing.

Sunset casts the ocean in a myriad of colours, more striking than any rainbow and more heartfelt than any symphony. Doctor Jacobi takes a long drag of the spliff he’s been nursing for the past half hour and tries to focus on the blank page in front of him. He’s got an idea brewing, something about what long cold winters can do to the human psyche.

Or he could just churn out another few hundred pages on the art of psychological ghost hunting. People will call him a hack, but he’ll still sell books. Hey, if he’s lucky he might even help someone. That’s what this profession is supposed to be all about, after all.


	13. Donna Hayward

First she was the second fiddle to Laura’s vibrant violin concerto, then she was a hopeless teenager blaming all her problems on her dead best friend. Donna doesn’t think she was being particularly unfair when she stood over the grave and told Laura in no uncertain terms that they didn’t bury her deep enough, if she could find the stomach to leave flowers on the headstone today she’d probably say the same thing.

James had been hers, then he was Maddie’s, then he was gone and Donna was left alone. Without a friend in the world and without a hand to hold. She’d had to wonder, if only for a moment, if the problem hadn’t been her all along.

But Donna didn’t let the thought linger, and if it ever occurs to her these days she has buried it more than deep enough to never have to live in its aftermath. The problem, it turns out, had been Twin Peaks. The town was so ordinary that she had been unable to stomach its claustrophobic normalcy yet so awful that when anything actually happened it made her want to run. So she ran, and she’s still running. If it works for James, it can work for her.

Standing by the side of the road, debating whether to stick her thumb out or not when an old red Jaguar pulls into the pit stop. Donna’s been travelling with the same guy for a couple of weeks now, and she’s starting to get bored. He’s taking a leak right now, but he won’t be long. She only has a few minutes to decide how to play this.

In the end, she doesn’t try to hitch a new ride, though not because she doesn't want to. Her attention is lost when a motorbike speeds by on the other side of the road, and just for a moment she thinks maybe…

Then it’s gone, along with her chance at ditching her current boyfriend for a newer model. Promises of forever are dying on the back of her tongue, even as she pulls herself together, back into the here and now where she is determined to live until the end of her days.


	14. Ed Hurley

Sometimes Ed wakes up to find Nadine pressed up close against him, her hair tickling his nose and forcing him to stifle a sneeze. She’s always been a very affectionate person, and he likes that about her. Lacking in inhibitions, able to express herself clearly from the get go.

That includes the occasional bursts of temper, but Ed can live with that. If there are some afternoons when he goes strolling into the Double R and feels his heart ache something awful when Norma smiles at him, he tries very hard not to let it fester. There are worse things in this life than to be married to a woman who always speaks her mind and loves him very much.

He goes to open the curtains in the morning, letting light into the living room. They slide along the runners silently, revealing hills struck by the sun, practically singing in the early light. He’ll put some coffee on, take the morning a little slow, and will be down at the shop by lunchtime. Sure, he has regrets, he has things that he wishes were ever so slightly different, but all told Ed thinks he swung himself a pretty good deal in this life.


	15. Nadine Hurley

People make up the funniest stories about her, Nadine thinks, as she passes by the school on her way to the hardware store and catches whispers about predatory old women. It’s bizarre, to say the least, and does nothing to make her lack of attraction to Mike Nelson any more prominent.

Ed had sat her down one evening and tried to explain that people were just confused, and she had liked that. But when he had gone on to imply that Nadine was also suffering from confusion, she had to put a stop to it. Confused? Her? It’s a nasty practical joke, and not one she wishes to entertain for any longer than necessary.

What’s necessary today, is lubricant for the runners in the living room. The cotton wool was ingenious, if she says so herself, but just that morning some of it had gotten tangled in the curtain hooks and it had squeaked something awful when she pulled them open. Back to the drawing board it is, and she will need a whole host of new items to try out if she wants to get her silent runners on the market by the end of the year.

Nadine piles her basket high, throws in a few extra hammers for good measure and arrives at the check out with her head held high. The cashier gives her an odd look as he rings her up, and she leans in close to whisper, “you’re laughing now, but just you wait buddy. I’m gonna change the world.”


	16. Ben Horne

Business hasn’t been going great these past few years. Sure, the hotel’s still running and Audrey seems to be doing very well for herself, but Ben misses the old days when Ghostwood was all anyone could talk about round here and he was something of a local tycoon. These days The Great Northern mostly just gets nature tourists, come to look at the exceptional diversity of owls that live in the woods surrounding Twin Peaks.

He still turns a profit, but the fire's dying. Jerry brings him brie and butter sandwiches for lunch almost every day and they still taste great but they’re not so exciting when they’re so normal.

What bothers Ben most though, is how little he cares. Nostalgia hangs over him like a personal raincloud but it never breaks, and smoking cigars in his office still feels like a little slice of luxury just for him. It’s odd how it happens, settling down. First you think you’re going to hate everything about it, then you just hate that you can see what makes it all so awful but can’t stomach the negative emotions.

Ben breathes in cigar smoke, breathes out bad energy. Ghostwood never happened, he lost the war, history cannot be rewritten. Honestly though, it’s all perfectly fine. He’s mellowed in his old age, and all his little gripes with the state of his union are as background noise before the cacophony of his contentment.


	17. Lucy Moran

Lucy always assumed that having a baby would be a whole lot of work. She had decided to be ready for it, and so she was ready, but that didn’t stop her from squeaking with fright whenever anyone brought up the matter of labour.

Andy was sweet as ever, which is to say he was completely clueless. In those final few days before they both became parents Lucy must have talked him through hundreds of matters that it would be important for a new father to have a handle on before he met his child. Things like changing nappies, and getting up in the night sometimes so she wouldn’t have to do everything herself.

“Ok Lucy,” he had smiled, and then promptly forgotten everything she told him.

What matters though, is not what stays in Andy’s head but what lies in his heart. The urgent hope in his eyes when he grips Lucy’s hand and doesn’t complain when she squeezes too hard as the contractions rock her body. He’s saying something about how everybody will be excited to meet the new addition to their family.

And when he says ‘everybody’, he really means it. The whole town will turn out and show Lucy how to be a mother and in a way, they will be mothers too.

The muscles in Lucy’s belly clench and she cries out a horrible word that she would never normally say. The midwife is shouting meaningless numbers and someone is telling her to push and she knows right then that this is going to be the hard part.

Raising a child is a lot of work, but one lot of work shared between an entire town doesn’t feel like so much. Everything from here on out will be easy, so Lucy grips Andy’s hand as tight as she can, and pushes.


	18. Gordon Cole

Gordon’s starting to lose track of which agent goes where. Just this morning, he came in shouting for Dale Cooper only to be reminded that the man moved across the country years ago.

People will say he’s growing senile, which is just not true. Gordon’s mind is as sharp as ever, but he’d wanted to speak to Cooper so badly in that moment that he had voluntarily chosen to forget that they no longer worked in the same building. What a pity. This case would be just perfect for him.

“Denise!” Gordon shouts, then dives into his desk looking for the dossier for this assignment. Her expertise are different from Cooper’s, but under the circumstances she’s the next best thing.

After God knows how long searching for the file and no response from his agent, Gordon calls for her again.

“I’m right here,” Denise sounds exasperated, peering down at Gordon over the top of his desk.

“There you are!” Gordon lays a hand on the file and pulls it out of its spot in his drawer with little care for how it might disrupt his filing system, “here, I’ve got something for you.”


	19. Diane

There is an archive deep within the belly of 935 Pennsylvania Avenue containing thousands upon thousands of cassette tapes and CD recordings, all meticulously archived and stored for posterity by a handful of dedicated staff who’s job it is to handle that sort of thing. They strongly suspect that the only reason any of them still have a job is that the director has quite forgotten that they are down there and they are in no hurry to correct him.

One such worker stays late on Thursdays, taking a little extra time to make transcripts of the recordings of her very favourite agents. If she’s feeling very nice, she’ll slip into the computer system and carry out a few requests on their behalf. Nothing too strenuous, just the odd bit of equipment send where it’s needed, or a note that needs to be left on a file.

She reaches the end of her tapes, smiles fondly as a familiar voice fades to silence, and heads towards ‘C’ to file it properly.


	20. Jerry Horne

It would be easy to slow down to Ben’s pace in his aging years, but Jerry has no intention of doing any such thing. If his brother wants to grow old gracefully, that’s his business, but he fails to see why that means any of the rest of them should have to follow suit.

If you know who to ask, you can get pretty much any kind of drug out here. Narcotics, cocaine, you name it. Something about being so close to the Canadian border seems to make it impossible for people not to try smuggling a few odds and ends in or out of the country. As far as Jerry’s concerned, if the market is there it would be rude not to make the most of it. He’s learned to keep his fun out of the Great Northern for now, but there are other corners of Twin Peaks to crawl into, even with Jack’s gone.

Jerry takes Ben lunch whenever he can spare the mental fortitude, and they talk about being kids together, up in the hills. His brother never remarks on how bloodshot his eyes are, or how gaunt he’s becoming. Ben smiles at him, and tells Jerry he looks happy.


	21. Sarah Palmer

The house is far too big for one person and no matter what anyone tells her about how she’s going to get used to it, Sarah suspects it always will be. The living room looks empty when she’s sat in there alone and Laura’s bedroom stays stapled to the side of her living space like a phantom limb. A part of the healing process she will never quite complete, she will never quite want to.

Her sister suggests that she move, and the idea is tempting. A new town, new neighbours, new friends. A new house that looks exactly as big as it’s supposed to, without ghosts manifesting at the strangest times.

The girl who had been with Laura that night starts coming by for lunch. Ronette, she says her name is. The first time it happens Sarah doesn’t know what to make of it, but she figures she’s seen worse than whatever this teenage might be able to pull on her, so she opens the door and lets her in.

After Ronette, everything else is easy. The Haywards stop by with impromptu family music numbers, Shelly comes over with questions about starter homes and matching furniture, Donna carefully places herself two inches to the left of wherever Laura might once have sat and smiles into her tea. The whole town, in dribs and drabs. Filling up corners and hours of the day.

Years later, Sarah will look up and find that Laura’s room remains undisturbed and disturbing. She will also see her home full to bursting with family members who chose her despite everything. Like this, the house doesn’t look too big after all.


	22. Catherine Martell

The mill crumbled beneath her hands. Catherine will never quite forgive herself for that. Whatever else had been going on below the surface, she had never wanted to throw her family’s legacy down the drain.  

She had watched the thing burn, then watched it fall from disrepair to unsalvageable. She had cried at Pete’s funeral and meant it, and wasn’t that a turn up for the books?

All of Andrew’s scheming came to nothing. So Catherine gathers up the final few papers she has left that might incriminate her or worse, cause her to examine the effects of her actions upon other people, and takes Pete’s boat out to the middle of the lake. Perhaps this is foolhardy, perhaps she should just burn it all, but there’s something to be said for holding the paper under water until it’s sodden, then letting it drift towards the silt floor.

No more plan, just her. Without a husband or brother or bitch of a sister in law. Catherine smiles up at the clouds, and thinks that this is a wonderful time to be alive.


	23. Garland Briggs

There’s very little that can do more to cure Garland’s rare bad moods than a brusque walk in the woods. He’s careful to only head out during daylight hours these days, deeply reluctant to wind up back in the White Lodge. The trees are all a twitter with birds throughout much of the day, and sometimes he is lucky enough to run across a deer or other large mammal.

His work still keeps him heavily occupied most nights, but he doesn’t mind. He loves the peace of this place, away from the hustle and bustle of major cities and just secluded enough that Garland can pretend the rest of the world doesn’t know that Twin Peaks exists. Just him and the birds in the trees, just him and the extra-terrestrials sending messages across the stars. A man is an island, and this island is just perfect for him.


	24. Bobby Briggs

If he’s being very honest with himself, Bobby can just about admit that he regrets letting Shelly go. It’s a selfish sort of regret, the idea that he could have been a part of her life, but it still stings. He wasn’t lying when she pointed to the spare seat at the front of Leo’s truck and he had made it plain that he didn’t want that life, though he wishes he could go back and try to want it.

There are other women in Twin Peaks, but they’re not her. Bobby used to think that was a problem, but after years of carefully pulling himself together, he can see that it’s not so much of an issue. So what if he doesn’t get married or hold down a stable relationship? He has job prospects and buddies to go for a beer with after work, and that usually feels more important.

Sometimes Shelly comes back into town for the weekend and she usually agrees to meet up with him. She makes it sound so casual, suggesting dinner down the phone like it’s nothing. Bobby always picks the place and does his best to dress nice but she blows him away every time. Growing more beautiful as the years roll by, deliriously happy and completely ignorant of what may or may not have happened to her husband.

Bobby lets his tongue tie, falls into a stupor listening to the sound of her voice rising and falling as she regales him with stories from the big city. He doesn’t need to have her all to himself for his life to feel complete, just so long as she comes home to him every now and then he’ll be alright.


	25. Dick Tremayne

Dick is growing to be quite the suave older gentleman in his twilight years, if he says so himself. He’s always had remarkable taste in fashion but he picked the best of times to blossom into a silver fox. The suits they cut for men above their sixties are exquisite these days, so much more presentable than the ugly, box like things his grandfather used to wear when he was a boy.

“Really take it in at the hips,” he instructs the tailor’s assistant. They barely look to be out of diapers, with frizzy blonde hair and a pleasant, open face.

They look ever so slightly familiar, though Dick can’t quite place where he’s seen them before.

It’s of little matter who they might be though, not when they pull in the fabric around Dick’s waist and pin it just right. He hums in approval and goes back to admiring his reflection. It always was his best feature.


	26. Andy Brennan

Babies scream a lot, which isn’t so surprising but Andy wishes they had an off button. He has to get up at least three times a night to rock the little one back to sleep, and that’s just him. Poor Lucy hasn’t had a decent night’s rest since they came back from the hospital.

The house is a disaster area, every available surface littered with spare diapers and open books on parenting. Andy usually finds that by the time he’s looked something up in one of the books, Lucy’s found a way to handle whatever it is that the baby’s thrown at them all by herself.

She looks exhausted, but she’s glowing. Sometimes Andy catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror and sees an identical smile of worn satisfaction painted on his face. The fellas at the station say fatherhood suits him, but they’ve got it ever so slightly wrong. He’d be awful at this all by himself, but with Lucy on hand to help him through it, Andy feels like they can handle anything the kid throws at them.


	27. BOB

Blood thrumming beneath skin too thin. So thin. Bite hard enough and it breaks like butter, sinking teeth into throbbing flesh and tearing, ripping, feeling gore running down the front of his body and pooling in the gaps between his fingers. The hunt is fun, wild, exciting and oh so easy. Stupidly easy. Opening up his bag and pushing souls into the flames.

Oil leaks from his boots to mark a path behind him that can be followed back to the Lodge. This human vessel is so much sturdier than the others, so much more alive. It fights him at every turn. It doesn’t want him and it knows what he is and it will not let go of its sense of self. For the first time in a thousand years this requires more planning than expecting the right place and the right time to manifest simultaneously.

The sentinels cry out for him across the forest, and he turns his nose into the wind, sniffing for something bright, fearful, breathing that he might drag home in ruins. Regurgitate it, copy it, send it back out into the world.

There’s something there, faint but oh so exciting. He wants to take it to pieces, first physically and then by careful disembowelment of the soul. The hunt rises hard and fast in him, eager to begin tonight. It is happening to him and it is happening to the host.

It is happening again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have my cherry pie baked and I am psyched to be drinking coffee at 2am while I watch the season premier. Here's hoping it's a good one folks


End file.
